Laboratory of Heat Transfer and Environmental Engineering, Aristotle University Thessaloniki, Box 483, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece; MECO P.C., Technopolis Thessaloniki ICT Business Park, 55535 Pylaia, Greece.
School of Economics and Business Administration, International Hellenic University, 57001 Thermi, Greece.
Environ Int. 2014 Feb;63:1-10. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2013.10.014. Epub 2013 Nov 16.
This paper describes the structure of the Combined Environmental Stressors' Exposure (CENSE) tool. Individuals are exposed to several environmental stressors simultaneously. Combined exposure represents a more serious hazard to public health. Consequently, there is a need to address co-exposure in a holistic way. Rather than viewing chemical and physical health stressors separately for decision making and environmental sustainability considerations, the possibility of an easy-to-comprehend co-exposure assessment is herein considered. Towards this aim, the CENSE tool is developed in the programming environment of Delphi. The graphical user's interface facilitates its tractable application. Studying different scenarios is easy since the execution time required is negligible. The tool incorporates co-exposure indicators and takes into account the potential dose of each chemical stressor by considering the physical activities of each citizen in an urban (micro)environment. The capabilities of the CENSE tool are demonstrated through its application for the case of Thessaloniki, Greece. The test case highlights usability and validation insights and incorporates health stressors and local characteristics of the area considered into a well identified user/decision maker interface. The main conclusion of the work reported is that a decision maker can trust CENSE for urban planning and environmental sustainability considerations, since it supports a holistic assessment of the combined potential damage attributed to multiple health stressors. CENSE abandons the traditional approach of viewing chemical and physical stressors separately, which represents the most commonly adopted strategy in real life decision support cases.
本文描述了综合环境应激因素暴露（CENSE）工具的结构。个体同时暴露于多种环境应激因素下。综合暴露对公众健康构成更严重的威胁。因此，需要以整体的方式解决共同暴露问题。本研究考虑了一种易于理解的共同暴露评估方法，即不再分别针对化学和物理健康应激因素进行决策和环境可持续性考虑，而是将其综合考虑。为此，CENSE 工具在 Delphi 编程环境中开发。图形用户界面使其易于应用。由于所需的执行时间可以忽略不计，因此研究不同的场景非常容易。该工具包含共同暴露指标，并通过考虑城市（微观）环境中每个公民的体力活动，考虑每个化学应激因素的潜在剂量。通过在希腊塞萨洛尼基的案例应用来展示 CENSE 工具的功能。该测试案例突出了可用性和验证的见解，并将健康应激因素和所考虑区域的局部特征纳入到一个明确的用户/决策者界面中。报告工作的主要结论是，决策者可以信任 CENSE 来进行城市规划和环境可持续性考虑，因为它支持对归因于多种健康应激因素的综合潜在损害进行整体评估。CENSE 摒弃了传统的分别看待化学和物理应激因素的方法，这是现实生活决策支持案例中最常用的策略。
